


A Shining Artifact of the Past

by gloriouswhisperstyphoon



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Inspired by Hannibal, Mentions of Mental Illness, Past Matt Murdock/Elektra Natchios, Vaguely Post Season 3, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-07 22:31:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17969276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriouswhisperstyphoon/pseuds/gloriouswhisperstyphoon
Summary: There's a darkness hiding in everyone and it's bubbling to the surface in Hell's Kitchen amidst the spree of a psychopathic serial killer. Matt attempts to gain an insight into the twisted mind of this killer by talking to another: Elektra Natchios.





	1. The Separation of Light and Dark

Matt could smell the blood long before he got close to the apartment, feeling it sink deep into his bones, the familiar copper scent, leading him there like a brilliant red thread, a distant wisp of smoke hovering in the air.

His footsteps echoed on the empty rooftops and the wind whistled past his face. 

His heart beat loudly in his ears when he dropped to the fire escape, the only sound that he could hear. 

Hell’s Kitchen was silent, not a single soul on the streets in the bitter cold and there was nothing but the wind around him.

There was no one inside the apartment.

No one left alive, at least. 

The smell of blood got even worse as he got close, inching his hands underneath the window and shifting it up as the hinges squeaked, as loud as a shriek.

The apartment seemed almost cold and sterile for half a beat, before the sensations rushed over him like a wave. 

A pendulum swung in the back of his mind, beating hard in time with his heart, loud and pounding in his ears.

He shouldn’t be here.

But he knows this, the blood soaked into the wall more familiar to him than breathing.

Focus, Matthew.

Arterial spray had splashed the wall and soaked into the soft carpet, his boots sinking deep into it like a quagmire and he felt himself shift backwards almost out of instinct before he felt it. 

The bodies, a tableau of death on the floor in front of him, and he reached out a hand to touch the wall. 

Still slightly warm from the blood.

This had happened recently and he felt a prickle on the back of his neck.

His heart beat loudly in his ears, a slow and steady metronome beat while he shifted his weight, focusing on his breath.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Focus.

The world came into stark relief in his mind’s eye and he could feel the world around him, painted in those brilliant shades of red.

Two bodies on the ground - one man, one woman.

Matt reached down to brush his gloved hand against the man’s unbloodied arm. Warmer than the woman.

She’d died first.

The tang of gunpowder sat heavily on the back of his tongue and the sour prickle in his mouth only grew as he stood in the centre of the room.

His heart kept beating in his chest, loud and echoing.

He cocked his head, letting the rest of the sensations rushing over him as he started to filter through the morass.

There. 

Mud against the door, the heavy tread of a boot print from when it had been kicked in, the taste heavy on his tongue as he shifted closer, feeling the warmth from the blood that had dried on the alarm keypad. 

His mind rushed, trying to put the connections together.

The pendulum swung above his head, a Sword of Damocles while he struggled to put the scene together.

Think, Matthew.

They’d tried to go for the alarm.

But why -

He knew something about this

What could have happened -

Something fell downstairs and Matt felt himself tense.

There was a man’s voice there, telling another group to  _ go, go, go _ \- five from the sound of their heavy footsteps on the stairs.

It took a moment to slip out the window, to shut it behind him, the squeaks like a hollow scream and feel the cold wind against his face as he ran, the prickle never quite leaving the back of his neck, as he went back to his apartment, to Karen and Foggy and to  _ life _ .

 

 

\---

 

 

Matt slept poorly that night. It’d been a long time since he’d seen in his dreams, but they came to vivid life that night and he tossed in his bed as his mind went mad.

His dreams were bathed in brilliant red, the sprays rippling out in front of him with the stroke of a sharp knife, like a ribbon being thrown across the room.

He saw a woman rise from it, the blood wrapping around her like a robe, or a shroud, before she looked down at him from a high throne, her chin held high and a sceptre in her hand, clutched tightly as if she would bring it down on his head. 

She looked down at him from on high and he saw her lips open, a forked tongue peeping out and the words echoed through him, a different language, but he heard the fear and the rage and the fortitude behind them. 

She smelled like death and destruction and something sweeter underneath it all, almost like the scent of an orchid -

Matt quailed in front of her in his dream, before he stilled himself and held his arms up, ready to fight if need be, but the woman opened her mouth even wider and a torrent of blood came out, washing over him and drowning him and he couldn’t breathe and -

He startled awake, breathing heavily in the darkness of his world on fire. 

What could he hear around him?

Breathe in.

Breathe out. 

The neon of the billboard outside crackled and popped, the rush of electricity running through it. 

The muffled sounds of the traffic outside in the snow. 

The arguments of the couple two floors below, each accusing each other of infidelity, the sting of hurt there in both of their voices. 

The faint floral scent of Karen’s perfume that still clung stubbornly to the couch, a cool balm amidst the chaos. 

He pressed his hands to his forehead, trying to clear the taste of blood that he could still feel at the back of his tongue, before breathing out deeply. 

He slept fitfully for the rest of the night. 

 

 

\---

 

 

Hell’s Kitchen was muffled outside the windows of Nelson, Murdock and Page, the snow blanketing the city and stifling any sounds from outside. 

Focus, Matt. 

The sound of Foggy’s pen scratching over the pages in the office next door, before the paper was balled up and lobbed into the trash can.

The hollow tapping of Karen’s fingers on the keyboard followed by the rustle of her hair as she shoved it out of her face, followed by the sounds of tapping again. 

He drowned himself in the sound and tried to forget what he’d seen in his sleep last night and what his mind was trying to tell him the entire time. 

A voice broke through the reverie in his head. 

The pendulum swung and he forced himself to sit straighter, to smile, to pretend that he hadn’t spent the entire night tossing and turning from what his dreams were trying to tell him. 

“Matt? You alright?” Karen asked, poking her head from around the door of his office, her nails scraping slightly against the doorframe. “You don’t look great.”

He shook his head, clearing the fog from his mind. “I’m fine, Karen. Just had a rough night last night.”

She cocked her head, her hair falling over one shoulder and the scratching sound echoed in his ears. “I didn’t hear about any Daredevil sightings last night.”

His mouth went as dry as bone and the words stuck in his throat while he racked his brain to explain what he’d found. He idly ran a finger over the Braille display, before he heard the distant sounds of a door opening and closing on the street to the office.

“Can we talk later?” he said, giving a meaningful glance towards the office door and Karen spun, her clothes scraping against the doorframe as she went to go stand in the central room of the office. 

“That’s a date. Also, I’m not your damn secretary, Matt!” she said with a laugh. 

“Damn straight! I can’t believe she makes me answer phone calls now! Illegal!” Foggy shouted from his office and Matt gave a bright laugh, his body seeming to lighten, before he heard -

The footsteps got louder and he could hear the distant clicking of boots on the steps leading to the door. 

The sound was familiar and he could hear the woman’s voice on the phone, his tone strained while he walked up to the office. 

_ I’m alright, I just need to - _

_ No, I’m at the office now - _

_ You can’t talk to me like that!  _

_ Look, I’ll talk to you later, I have to go now.  _

The door squeaked on its rusty hinges as it was pushed open and Matt forced himself to keep his head down, not to stand up out of instinct, and his fingers moving across the Braille display as the man took in the empty office, the air currents shifting with his body.

She smelled like fear and death and his every movement sent a chill up Matt’s spine.

“Welcome to Nelson, Murdock and Page,” Karen said, her hands twisting in front of her. 

Foggy’s footsteps out of his office echoed like trees falling in a forest. “Can we help you somehow? That’s Page, I’m Nelson and Murdock is hiding in his office -”

“I need your help.”

That stopped Foggy’s bluster for a moment, before he smoothly restarted and Matt got up from his seat to try and defuse whatever this woman wanted. 

The fear was rolling off the woman in waves, and Matt was inexplicably reminded of a tiny quicksilver fish trapped in a larger current. 

“Shall we sit in the conference room?” Matt asked, keeping his voice deceptively light and his hand on the wall to keep up the appearance of a helpless blind man. 

Foggy’s footsteps vanished into the conference room with the heavier ones of the woman. 

_ Can I get you anything to drink? _

_ No, I just need - _

There was a soft hand on his shoulder and he forced himself to focus, to -

“Karen.”

“Are you alright? You look like, well, someone’s died.”

He shook his head, licking his lips to try and decide his words. The pendulum swung above his head and he forced himself to turn his body language to lightness and to gentle happiness, bringing the corner of his mouth up in a small smile. 

“I’m alright. But I’m not entirely sure that woman is.”

Her voice was blunt. “I knew that already, Matt. She looks about as well as you.”

He bit his tongue. “I’m pretty sure there’s something more at play here, Karen.”

She laughed, a darkness to her voice before walking into the conference room after Foggy, her shoes clicking on the floor. “When isn’t there?” 

 

 

\---

 

 

The woman’s heartbeat was jumping like that of a frightened rabbit and she took a sip of water, before setting it down with shaking hands. 

“My name is Mary Walker,” she said, swallowing hard. “I think - I think that I killed someone last night.”

Karen jerked her head up, her pen scraping along the surface of the legal pad. 

Walker’s heartbeat jumped and started beating faster. 

No. There was something wrong here.

Matt forced himself to give a sympathetic smile. “Can I ask what makes you think that, Ms Walker?”

A shake of the woman’s head. “I don’t know! All I remember - All I remember is waking up in my bed last night covered in blood - I can’t remember what happened.”

“Ms Walker, why exactly did you come to us instead of the police if you think that you killed someone?”

There was a sharp intake from breath from next to him. Foggy. 

Karen’s pen started scratching along the legal pad, before she passed him the sheet, the words pressed hard into it. 

_ Should I call Brett? _

He shook his head as surreptitiously as possible. 

“I don’t know why I came here, I just thought that it would be a good idea -”

His heartbeat started racing even faster. 

Foggy cleared his throat and he could hear the scrape of a glass of water being pushed across the table. “Do you want to tell us about what you think happened last night?”

“I don’t know what happened, but I went for dinner with my friends and then - everything sort of blacked out and I woke up the next morning with blood all over my hands and clothes and a gun on the nightstand.”

Matt cocked his head. “Do you know  _ what _ murder you think you committed?”

A shake of her head. Her heartbeat still hadn’t slowed. 

“Ms Walker, this cannot work if you’re not completely honest with us.”

She raised her head, her bones cracking with the speed of it. “Does that mean you’re taking my case?” she asked, the naked relief evident in her voice. 

Foggy stepped in, his hand landing like a thunderbolt on the desk. “Not yet, Ms Walker. We’d need to consult with each other before anything else,” he said, with an edge in his voice, presumably aimed at Matt. 

Matt nodded, just a quick movement of his chin and he heard Foggy’s heartbeat settle. 

“Can you tell us about the murder that you think that you might have committed?” Matt heard himself asking, trying to ground himself. 

“I wouldn’t be able to -”

“Ms Walker, you understand that we can’t help you if you don’t tell us exactly everything that happened?”

“I saw it in the news this morning, alright! The man and the woman in their apartment! The ones that were killed! I think it was me!”

The world seemed to melt away around him and he could hear her heartbeat pounding in his ears. 

It was erratic, jumping about.

Matt tapped a single finger on the back of Karen’s hand and she almost seemed to jump out of her skin before she straightened herself. 

A quick nod and he gave a smile to the woman across the desk from them. 

“Excuse us for a moment.”

Foggy’s heartbeat was loud and angry when they convened in his tiny office. “What the hell was that about?”

He shook his head. “I've got no idea.”

“Do you want the case?”

He sighed, before pushing the hair out of his face in an empty movement. “Do you?”

There was a rustle. Foggy was shaking his head, his voice exasperated. “No way in hell. But -” 

“You're curious about this, aren't you?” he asked with a laugh, leaning against the desk. 

Foggy’s voice was muffled as if he'd shoved his face into his hands. “I thought that the insane cases ended with the Castle trial. Why the hell do we still have a reputation for them?”

Matt bit his tongue. He'd pushed Foggy into enough uncomfortable decisions in the past. He wouldn't be responsible for another. 

“Is it bad that I want to take the case?”

He shook his head. 

“Do you think she did it?”

Karen’s footsteps rang out from behind them and Matt turned around quickly, letting the pendulum swing and pasting a smile on his face. 

“Did you guys decide yet?” she asked, crossing her arms. “She’s really shaken up in there.”

There was no answer. 

Matt could distantly register the sound of Karen chewing her lip and Foggy tapping his foot -

The pendulum swung above his head. 

The taste of copper filled his mouth.

A river of red wrapped around a woman seated high above his head on a throne and -

“I don’t think she did it,” he admitted. 

The pendulum stopped. 

Karen and Foggy both started talking over each other at the same time. 

“You can’t be serious -”

“Then why the hell aren’t we taking the case -”

He waved an arm in the air, a headache starting to form near his temples. “I don’t think she did it, but I don’t think she’s completely innocent, either.”

“You think she knows who did it?” Karen asked. 

There was a loud smack from the table and Matt forced himself to stand still as the onslaught of Foggy’s anger washed over him. “Honestly, our most important thing is that we decide what we’re going to do about this.”

Matt tapped a finger on the table. “Can we wait? Just - a day or two,” he said, in response to Foggy and Karen both turning their heads in his direction. “Just keep an eye on her for a day or two and if we find anything - strange - then we can call Brett?”

Both their heartbeats were steady. 

“Guess it’s better than nothing,” Foggy said, finally breaking the silence that had grown between them.

Matt let out a shaky sigh. “You want her to stay with me?”

Karen shook her head, before pushing her hair out of her face. “You guys didn’t see - oh shit, sorry Matt - but she was really shaken up back there.”

He could hear the unspoken words in her voice. “So you want to let her stay at your apartment?”

A rustle of clothes. 

A shrug, then. 

“Sure, I’ll do it,” she said, false cheer in her voice. “I’ll go tell her, then?”

The sound of her shoes echoed on the way out of the door and Matt could hear her voice next door, explaining their plan.

Foggy sighed again, sinking into his seat and resting his head on the desk. “Why do we get all the crazy cases, Matt?”

 

 

\---

 

 

The first night passed without incident. 

So did the second. 

The third night found him perched on the roof of Karen’s apartment building, listening to the twin heartbeats downstairs and the quiet mundane conversations that were happening, followed by the tapping of keys on Karen’s laptop. 

He settled down, listening to the entire city from this building at the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. From this distance, it almost felt like a ship on the sea, grounding him with its bright lights and its noises. 

There was a rustle of sheets downstairs and Matt perked up. 

_ I’m really damn tired, Karen.  _

An answering laugh.  _ I know what that’s like.  _

_ Yeah? _

_ It passes pretty quick though. Getting the sleep in helps. That book’s pretty heavy though, so I’m pretty sure it’d send you straight to sleep. Night, Mary.  _

Walker gave a bone cracking yawn.  _ Yeah, guess it does. Night, Karen _ . 

The apartment settled down, and Matt crouched down low on the roof, the cold starting to seep into his bones. 

The fire escape creaked briefly before he heard Karen on the rooftop across from him, her heartbeat steady and a cup of coffee held out in her hand. 

“Did you come up just to say hello?”

She laughed before setting the mug at his side. “Figured you’d be getting cold up here without muggers to beat up for warmth.”

“I’m not turning down the opportunity for coffee, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Too bad. This is mine.”

Matt laughed, before moving over when Karen settled next to him. 

The silence stretched out between them, only broken by the sounds of Hell’s Kitchen and the distant rumble of thunder. 

“How are you really, Matt?”

A sigh escaped him, the weight of the last few days sitting on his chest and refusing to move. “I’ve been better.”

She moved closer to him, her heat comforting at his side. Her hand rested so close to his own. “What’d you find, Matt? Why are you so fixed on this?”

He swallowed hard. “The people that were -”

“You found the bodies?”

Her hand was so very warm over his own, even through the layers of ropes and bandages. “You know, Matt, you don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“For what?”

She shrugged, facing towards the skyline and the bustle of Times’ Square that he could just make out from this far away. “You believed in her.”

He cocked his head. “About what? Mary?” He gave a helpless little shrug. “I guess I just believe the best of people. I guess I always have,” he said, with a slight smirk in her direction. 

Karen shifted ever closer to him, the line of her body pressed to his side. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for that, did I? All those times?”

Her warmth was overpowering and he could smell the heady scent the shampoo she’d used, all citrus and lavender, filling his head and his veins and -

“I think that you’ve done more for me than you’ll ever know.”

“Even after - all of the -”

He laughed. “Karen, I’m not lying when I said that we’d had one perfect night - I wanted so much more, but -”

“Can we give it another go then?” 

The thunder rumbled in the distance, the sound seeming to grow closer with each second. 

Raindrops landed on the roof, each one sounding like a tree crashing in the distance. 

Her hand was soft on his face and he leaned into it, before her lips pressed against his, softly at first, then Matt felt all the feelings wash over him.

The warmth of her hands, the softness of her hair, the coolness of her lips against his and -

He pulled himself back, his hand resting lightly on her face, her scent intoxicating in his veins. 

“Karen, I need to know that this is serious,” he murmured, while her hands ran up his back and his thumb brushed against her cheek as her eyes closed and she moved even  _ closer  _ to him and -

“I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”

Her lips were on his again and his hand tightened on her hip and she moved closer, almost sitting in his lap, and he was so warm, he didn’t think he’d feel like this again, and his hand was tangling in her hair and she was so close and -

A scream echoed out through the night. 

Matt’s jaw was tight, trying to strain to hear if Walker was still in the apartment below, but his head was racing. 

Where was she?

Karen was looking around, her heartbeat starting to race. 

“Oh God,” she whispered, a constant refrain. 

Wait - 

There was a heartbeat below in the apartment, but his senses were all starting to blur together. 

“It’s not her,” he whispered, trying to work out how far the scream had been from them.

She shook her head, before scrambling to her feet towards the fire escape. “Go! Go, Matt!”

He took a deep breath, clearing everything from his head and letting the pendulum swing. 

Four blocks down.

That’s where it’d come from.

His footsteps echoed over the empty rooftops and soon the only thing he could smell was blood. 

 

 

\---

 

 

The walls of his apartment seemed like a cell, pressing in and he could still taste the blood everywhere, feel it bleeding out from him and dripping down the walls of the apartment, the red of his world on fire so oppressive he could hardly breathe.

Everywhere he turned, he seemed to see a dark mirror, the eyes of a dead child looking back at him, bleeding out on their apartment floor in front of his eyes next to their parents, the window still smashed behind him. 

It was the same murderer as the last one, he knew it in his heart of hearts. 

He couldn’t save the child  -

Oh God, the child had died -

His heart was pounding and everything was too much, everything pressing down on him and -

“Unknown number,” his phone called out, a sharp trill in the darkness. 

His mouth went dry and he fumbled for it. 

“Hello, Matthew,” a woman’s voice said, pleasant but with a symphony of darkness and violence coiling just below the surface. “Why don’t you come and play with me? Why don’t you ask me about your new killer? Do come to Riker’s, Matthew. I’ve been dreadfully bored lately.”

The line went dead, the clicking seeming to echo for hours, a lifetime of love and death contained in that one empty sound.


	2. The Creation of the Sun, the Moon and the Earth

Rikers Island was as empty and as full as Matt remembered it from his last visit (blood and bruises all over his fists and then the oppressive feeling of the water rushing into the taxi), the scared heartbeats of the prisoners everywhere he went and the heaviness that he associated with fear. 

Foggy’s voice was loud in his ear as Matt held the phone up. “Are you honestly sure this is a good idea, Matt?”

He sighed. “There’s no other choice, Foggy. She knows something - I’m sure about -”

“She’s also the woman that gutted and lashed a poet to the steps of the Duomo in Florence and organised a guy to beat him up with a bow because she was pissed at you, Matt! She’s not sane!”

“And what other leads do we have?”

There was a pause from the other end of the line. “I’m not happy about this.”

He shrugged, not that Foggy would be able to see it. “I’m not either, but if it gets us anywhere, I’ll be happy. Keep me posted about what happens with Brett.”

Foggy’s sigh was a short shock of static in his ear. “Will do.”

The guard was tapping his finger insistently when Matt finally put down the phone and turned to face him. “I’m here to see Elektra Natchios.”

There was something in the guard’s voice when he told him the name of who he was visiting, and a slight hitch in his gait. 

“Are you sure you want to do that, Mr Murdock?” the scared officer told him, trying to hide the quaver in his voice.

He shrugged.

He’d come this far and he wasn’t generally in the habit of backing off. 

“Who approved your visit?”

The pendulum swung in his head and he was silent for a moment. “I should be on the approved visitors list.”

The guard’s heartbeat started to race. “It’s on there - she added it three days ago -”

“Can I see her then?”

The pendulum swung on.

“It’s your loss, then,” the other guard said, false bravado lacing his words. 

His cane tapped along the empty corridors, leaving the jeering shouts of the other prisoners behind him while the world grew colder and the tension only seemed to grow as the number of doors that they had gone through increased.

Nine doors now, between himself and the real world.  

“How far down are we going?”

His guide made an aborted gesture that might have been a shrug before he clearly remembered that he was with a blind man. “It’s pretty far down. The big guys wanted her left in The Pit.”

“The Pit?”

“Supermax. She put three guys in the hospital on her first day in genpop.”

The cane tapped on the floor again and he could feel the guard’s muscles tense. 

The quick beep of a keycard against a door and the rattle as it opened. 

Ten doors, now.

“Alright, I’ll run through this quickly for you,” the guard said. “Do not reach through the bars, do not touch the bars. You can pass her nothing but soft paper. No pens, pencils, staples, paperclips, what have you. Use the sliding food carrier, no exceptions. If she tries to hold anything out to you, you don’t touch it. You got it?”

Matt nodded. 

The guard snorted. “You’re honestly not ready. You know she tore open a nurse’s throat with her teeth?”

He swallowed, forcing himself to keep walking. 

Next to him the guard laughed again, the sound setting him on edge. “She was hooked up to all those medical machines when she did it. Heart rate never cracked 80.”

One last door now. 

Eleven doors. 

“This is where I leave you, Murdock. Yell if you need anything.”

The door seals shut behind him and Matt keeps walking. 

The air down here was sterile and it was hard to breathe with the strange emptiness and then he smelled it - 

Orchids. 

Elektra. 

She was sitting in her cell, her breathing loud in his ears before there was a sudden rustle of fabric and she was standing there, as alive and as deadly as ever. 

Her voice was as smooth as the serpent in the grass. 

“Hello, Matthew.”

“Elektra.”

“You do look well. I imagine that resurrection isn't necessarily an easy thing to undergo.”

Matt cocked his head. He grew tired of these games a long time ago. “Why are you here, Elektra?” he asked, his voice weary. 

“Maybe I missed the pleasure of your company.”

That was a lie if ever he'd heard one. 

“I doubt it. The way I remembered it, you could have found anyone you wanted to play your little mind games with.”

There was a hard metal seat just behind him and he sat down in it with the requisite amount of patting and floundering that the guards would expect of a blind man. 

Her hand pressed against the glass of the cell and he could hear the ruffle of papers in her cell, moving with the air conditioning. 

“Maybe I just wanted to play my games with you.”

“Sweetheart, you don't just leave cryptic phone calls for me without wanting something in return.”

“Are you still as alone as ever, Matthew?”

He gave a contemptuous snort, leaning back in his seat, keeping his hands steady on his lap. Elektra would get nothing more from him than she’d already taken. "I have friends. Which is probably more than you ever did."

Elektra ignored the barb. "I imagine that it must be so desperately lonely to live like you. To know that every movement of a person, every fluttering beat of their heart or their breath is telling you everything about them like an open book." She leaned forward, the slide of her lips with her smile loud in his ears. "Tell me, how do your friends live, knowing that they can't keep anything from you?"

Her heartbeat was as steady as his own and her breath was soft and measured, while she leaned back in her seat, her every motion deceptively gentle even as she held herself ready to pounce at a moment's notice.

Matt resisted the urge to clench his fist. 

Damn these mind games to Hell. 

Elektra just sat there, the smile that he'd once felt against his teeth broad on her face and her teeth bared. She used to want to be a ballerina, he remembered. The precision of the movements, the grace and the beauty and the hidden power in every step.

He could feel it in her still, the leonine grace and the delicacy with which she danced around him with her words. 

"Why did you call me here? It can’t have been for old times’ sake, not after that little tableau you set up in Florence," he says, all the bluntness of Jack Murdock in his words, the brute force with which his father fought hidden beneath the surface. 

She just laughed, a bright tinkling sound, deceptively high and innocent. Bright, but with something just beneath the surface that ought to belong in the primordial pit. “I thought you could do with a little help with this case.”

“Who says that I need help?”

Elektra shrugged her shoulder, her classic nonchalance barely breaking for a moment. “I’m surprised that you had time to visit me. Not with all the chaos that I hear is breaking out on the streets with this new killer in town.” She cocked her head, all false girlishness, the falseness heavy enough to taste. “How many has he killed now?”

Matt sat still for a moment, the words being dragged out of him. “Five.”

“How fascinating.”

“What does that mean?”

“Does it ever get annoying, not having all the information?”

He cocked his head, a wolfish smile coming over his face. “Does it ever get annoying, trying to get the attention of the same person for years on end? What information did you want to give me?”

“What information are you willing to give me in return?”

He laughed, bitter and short. “Elektra, we were together for the better part of a year. You seriously think that there’s information that you don’t know about my past?”

“I don’t want to talk about the past,” she said, with a coquettish laugh. “I want to talk about your present.”

Matt didn’t respond.

Elektra no longer had any right to him.

“What’s her name?” she said, batting her eyelashes and cocking her head.

He laughed. “You don’t get that.”

“Then you don’t get what I know.”

Matt’s hand tightened around his cane and he could feel the weight of Elektra’s gaze as he tried to wrestle between two bad options. 

The pendulum swung in his mind. 

Elektra wanted him to give him part of himself again. And knowing her, she had no particular plan in place for why she wanted it. 

He swallowed. “Karen. Her name is Karen.”

“See? Not so hard, wasn’t it?” she said, a giggle in her voice. “And now, your prize. Go find Raspail’s car for an early Valentine’s. Am I clear, Matthew?”

“Who the hell is Raspail -”

She laughed, before picking up a piece of paper in her cell, smoothing the sheet out. “I’d go now, if I were you, Matthew. Spending this much time in the Pit isn’t a good idea, even for a Devil.”

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

“You get anything from the psycho?” were Foggy’s first words to him when he entered the office, the burn of fresh air exhilarating after the sterile terror of Rikers Island. 

He bit his tongue, turning the piece of information over in his mind. “She gave me a name - she said to look in his car. Raspail.”

Foggy’s glare was sharp. “And if she’s fucking with you again?”

Matt shrugged, leaning against the desk, his hand braced against its bulk. “I don’t think she’s fucking with me, or even that she wants to. I think she’s just doing what she’s always done.”

“Which is what?”

He laughed, as bitter and as empty as Elektra’s had been. “Whatever she wants. If she’s giving us answers, I’m not complaining -”

“And if she’s just messing with us? Where does that leave us?”

Another shrug. “We didn’t have too many options either way,” he said, cocking his head, listening to Foggy’s steady heartbeat. “What happened with Brett?”

Foggy sighed deeply, shoving his hands into his pockets. “On the upside, he believed me when I said that we didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“And on the downside?”

“Well, she’s in custody now, and I think that half the precinct was lining up to interrogate her until I got them to back off. She’s out now though. Didn’t have enough to charge her on,” he said, an edge to his voice.

“I’ll get her to come in tomorrow. Maybe she’ll talk to me more.”

“Because you’ve got more experience talking with psychopaths?”

He ignored the barb and left the office, crossing the floor to his own, before sinking into his too-uncomfortable chair and turning on his laptop, feeling the thrill singing beneath his skin.

“What about the Raspail angle?” Foggy called out. 

Matt tensed for a moment. “We’ll get Karen to look into it when she gets to the office. We need to know who the hell he is in the first place before we can even get started on hunting his car down.”

“Hey Matt?”

He raised his head to look in Foggy’s general direction, listening to the steady sound of his heart. “You still think she’s innocent?”

He could hear his own heartbeat start to race and he clenched his fist, feeling Foggy’s eyes on him all the while. “I don’t know anything anymore. I think this game is something more than we can comprehend, Foggy.”

There was something that screamed finality in the way that Foggy settled down into his own office across the hall, carefully leaving the door open.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

A quick round of phone calls once Karen got back to the office revealed that Benjamin Raspail had once been a prize flautist with the New York Symphony who’d simply vanished out of nowhere, his body found a few weeks later with his thymus and pancreas removed and every single tool and sharp object from his workbench left in his body. 

Foggy’s heart had started racing when Karen had told them, his pulse sounding almost like a frightened bird. 

The only response he would give to Matt’s confused look was a whisper of ‘the sweetbreads’. 

It didn’t bear fruit to go too far down that line of thinking. 

“Do you know where his car might be, Karen?” he said, her shoulder solid and warm against his hand. 

She shook her head. “He was broke when he died - I guess that I’d need to talk to the estate?”

Night had fallen and Foggy had long left the office, citing ‘Marci’ as his reason, before Karen finally managed to get in touch with the estate of Benjamin Raspail. 

The estate turned out to have been managed by Everett Yow, a normally cheerful man in his sixties. 

The pause over the phone when Karen had brought up the case was long enough that empires had risen and fallen in that time. 

_ “There were so many lawsuits being brought when Elektra Natchios was arrested - the other victims’ families wanted their records destroyed - and it’s not like Mr Raspail was particularly -”,  _ Matt could hear over the phone as Karen tried to corral him into giving them what they needed. 

_ “I’m sorry, Mr Yow, we just need the location of his car -” _

_ “What’s this for -” _

_ “We think that the car might be relevant to a client that -” _

_ “How the hell did you get my number? If  _ she _ gave you the number -” _

_ “Mr Yow, I’m sorry if this is causing you any distress, but we need the location of the car, that’s all. Elektra Natchios had nothing to do with this.”  _ Matt ignored the way that Karen’s heart started racing with the lie.

Yow’s voice on the other end of the line was less frantic when he replied,  _ “Well, that’s going to be a bit difficult, because the family divvied up all the belongings after - well, before we knew who’d killed him. But - it looks like his car got sold off for parts.” _

The pause that followed that rang out with all the things that Elektra had left unspoken.  _ “Um, Ms Page -” _

_ “I’m still here,”  _ Karen’s calm voice said, curiosity tempering her tone.  _ “What is it, Mr Yow?” _

_ “Well, if you’re looking for a car, there’s an old Mustang that was almost useless, so -” _

_ “Do you know where the car is?” _

_ “Split City. It’s a storage facility by the looks of it.” _

The dial tone was loud and sharp enough that Matt almost recoiled from it, before Karen’s footsteps echoed in the office and all he could hear was the sounds of Hell’s Kitchen at night. 

“I’m guessing you heard everything there?”

He shrugged. No point trying to hide anything from her. 

Her skirt rustled around her legs as she perched herself at the edge of her desk, her legs barely an inch away from his own. “You want to go check it out?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t seem too happy for a man who’s just found a lead about his potentially innocent client.”

He let out a deep, beleaguered sigh, trying to work out how one even started to explain what it meant to be the subject of Elektra Natchios’ mind games. “It’s not somewhere I want to go alone.”

Karen shrugged. “Fine. You’re not.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. 

“I’m coming with you, Matt!”

Matt shook his head, biting down on his tongue. “Elektra - she wants me to play this game, Karen. I’m not getting you involved if I can help it.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I can’t do -”

“Karen, I don’t think you know what we’re even -”

Her heels clicked loudly on the ground and he heard the rattle of her bag and the weight of the gun in it. “Too late. You coming or not?”

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

The rain was pounding outside by the time they reached the facility and it echoed on the cinder block sheds and the hurricane fences that made up the place.  

“This is it,” the facility attendant said, shivering in the cold while the key rattled in the lock and set Matt’s teeth on edge. “Someone paid for ten years of storage for this - Pre-paid in full. Got registered under the name Mofet.”

“Mofet?” Karen managed to chatter out. 

In the rain, Matt could almost make out every feature on Karen’s face and he tensed, trying to listen to whatever was inside -

“Miss Hester Mofet, the record says.” A shrug from the attendant as he kept wrestling with the key. “No one’s opened this thing for more than five years. We don’t usually open these for anyone, but you said it’s police business?”

Karen tensed at his side and Matt grabbed her elbow, squeezing quickly. “Yes, it’s relevant to an open case,” he supplied.

The key shifted in the lock, screeching as the tumblers turned, negating any further need for conversation. 

Matt gritted his teeth as the attendant pulled the door open, only for it to grind to a stop only part of the way up. 

He reached down and tugged at the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. Karen bent down to help, but nothing moved. 

“We could always come back tomorrow - I’ll bring some workmen?”

Matt quickly turned around and shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. We’re not going to disturb anything, and we’ll be done before you know it.”

Karen’s voice was a hiss. “Can you sense anything inside?”

Another shake of his head. 

She sucked in a deep breath, before crouching down in front of the door. “The gap’s about 18 inches - reckon you can crawl?”

Matt shrugged. 

There was no point doing anything otherwise.

Elektra had sent them here for a reason, after all. 

“I’ll go first,” he offered, while the attendant looked on them in shock. 

“You guys don’t want -”

“We’re good,” Karen said, waving him off as Matt started to crawl under the door, the grit rough underneath his hand and the scampering of mice loud in his ears, before he pulled himself through and stood up straight. 

“I’m though!” he shouted to Karen. “Squeeze under and I’ll help pull you through.”

Her hand was cool in his when she stuck it through the gap, standing with a clicking sound in her knees and a brief groan. 

The sound of the torch turning on seemed to echo through the empty space. 

The smell of worn and cracked leather and gasoline leached into his bones and he went to stand closer to the car, putting his hand against the windows. 

He could smell plastic - and perfume? - inside the car and -

Karen’s shoes were loud behind him. 

“See anything?”

She shook her head, every sound magnifying a thousandfold as the rain kept beating down outside. 

Matt shuffled away from the car for Karen to put the torch -

She jumped back from the car with a muffled scream, her hands shaking. “There’s a body in there.”

The pendulum in his head started swinging and he started paring back everything he could sense around them. 

A shake of his head. 

“That’s not a body. Maybe -”

“It’s a mannequin,” Karen said, laughing nervously, speaking softly as if she wanted to convince herself. “Just a mannequin, nothing to be worried about.”

Matt pulled open the car door, which swung open in a cloud of dust and must, trying to get closer - 

There was something there. 

A dead spot in his senses that smelled like petroleum jelly and vinegar and something sharper underneath it. 

A jar?

“Karen, I need you to tell me what’s in this,” he said, yanking the jar towards him and almost dropping it when Karen screamed. 

“Is everything alright in there?” the attendant shouted from outside. 

“It’s all fine, just got a bit surprised!” Matt shouted back. “What is it?” he whispered to Karen in an undertone. 

Her voice was shaky. “It’s a head, Matt.”

The jar almost slipped out of his hands a second time. “A head?”

“Yeah, a severed head in a jar. A man’s maybe?” she rattled off in a clipped and detached voice, even as her heart was racing loud and fast in Matt’s ears. “It’s a severed - why would there -”

“Is there anything special about the head, Karen?” Matt snapped, his tone short. 

Elektra wouldn’t have sent them here just to find a severed head in a jar - there must be something -

“There’s a mirror,” Karen said, moving closer to him. 

“A what?”

“A mirror - I think it was shoved into the mouth - but -”

The confused impressions from the last crime scene rushed into his head again - the fragments of broken glass on the floor amidst the blood that had felt like grit underfoot -

“He’s breaking all the mirrors,” Matt whispered, before his mind started racing, trying to think of all the potential solutions at this point. 

“Who’s -” Karen said, before she sucked in a quick breath. “You’re not saying that our serial killer’s been doing this for years? As in, this isn’t the first time -”

He shook his head, putting the jar back into the car and focusing on everything he could hear - Karen’s shaky breaths, her heartbeat, that of the attendant outside, the hum of the torch - everything that tied him to life. 

“Call Brett.”

“What?”

Matt fixed his gaze on Karen. “Call Brett. Tell him that we need to report this and let Foggy -”

“What are you going to be doing?”

He swallowed hard, before moving to crawl under the door again. “Rikers Island. I have to go to Rikers.”

“What about Mary?”

Another shake of his head. “Mary’s not relevant to this, I don’t think. But Elektra knows something that we don’t.”

“I’m coming with you then.”

Matt laughed, bitter, hard and slightly insane. “You’re not going anywhere near Elektra.”

“What is this bullshit? Some sort of ‘my ex can’t see my current girlfriend’ nonsense?”

He clenched his fist tight. “Maybe when said ex kills and eats people for fun, it’s considered appropriate to go separately,” he snapped, before softening his tone. “Please, Karen. Please - I know - I know Elektra in a way you or Foggy never will.”

Her voice was harsh in the darkness. “I want you to know that I’m deeply unhappy about this.”

He nodded. He’d expected as much.

“And I want you to know that if you try and pull this again, Elektra Natchios won’t be the only ex who kills and eats people.” 


End file.
